Baltimore (IOCC) – International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC)
announces a broad expansion of its ongoing relief work in Southern
Lebanon through a newly-awarded $2 million grant from the U.S.
Government’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). IOCC will
provide water and sanitation installations, hygiene kits, psychosocial
support, infrastructure rehabilitation, emergency relief supplies and
cash for work activities in the hardest-hit southern villages of
Marjeyoun, Hasbayya, and seven other villages surrounding the port city
of Tyre.

“The overall purpose of this project is to assist returnees by providing
a healthy and safe environment, with special emphasis on mothers and
children,” says Matthew Parry, Interim Director of Operations for IOCC.
“This intervention will positively impact these families’ lives by
creating employment opportunities through construction activities, and
will reduce tension, frustration and the prevalence of communicable
diseases.”

The project will assist an estimated 2,500 vulnerable families including
families of victims, people with disabilities, families caring for
orphans and elderly people living alone. IOCC, which will provide an
additional $525,000 in cash and in kind material contributions, making
the total project value at $2.5 million, will repair 23 schools, water
mains, village communal water tanks and water pumps, and install and
replace chlorination units in 30 villages. The areas that IOCC selected
were based on an assessment made by staff in consultation with
grassroots leadership, church hierarchs, school directors, the Head of
the Ministry of Education and the High Relief Council.

IOCC has been active in Lebanon since 2001 where it has been
implementing a USDA-funded school feeding and education program in over
250 public schools throughout Lebanon. It was this development program
that became the platform for IOCC’s emergency efforts when the crisis
broke out in July. Since then, IOCC has delivered $100,000 in medicine
and medical supplies to St. George Orthodox Hospital in Beirut and five
other medical centers in the South, and provided food and hygiene
parcels to over 5,000 displaced persons taking shelter in the Matn, Alay
and Chouf areas, as well as to families who returned to the village of
Marjeyoun shortly after the ceasefire.

IOCC was founded in 1992 as the official humanitarian aid agency of the
Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas
(SCOBA). Since then, it has implemented over $226 million in relief and
development programs in 30 countries around the world.

To help in providing emergency relief, call IOCC's donation hotline
toll-free at 1-877-803-4622, make a gift on-line at www.iocc.org, or
mail a check or money order payable to “IOCC.” Donors can write "Lebanon
Crisis 2006," in the memo line. Mail to: IOCC, P.O. Box 630225,
Baltimore, Md. 21263-0225.